Albania's Offences
The attention of the world may before-long be called forcibly to the smallest of the Balkan States, and in some ways the worst conducted, Albania. Her behaviour in the matter of the Greek rebels can only be explained, and not even so condoned, by the fact that she is a puppet of Russia, with no independent volition of her own. With regard to the flagrantly unneutral acts committed by Albania during the fighting in Greece there is no question at all. It has been the subject of repeated reports by the United Nations Commission on the spot, which as lately as Tuesday of this week testified to having seen Greek forces fired on from Albanian soil and Albanian soldiers entering Greek territory and actively assisting In the escape of Greek rebels across the frontier. In such circum- stances the temptation to the Greeks to retaliate by invading Albania is strong, but Britain and America have so far succeeded in imposing restraint. Since Albania has chosen to quarrel with her other neighbour, Yugoslavia, the state of alarm prevailing in the country is intelligible enough, the more so as civil war may at any moment break out, for the dictatorship of Enver Hodja is thoroughly unpopular. In such conditions undue weight may be attached to rumours that Yugoslavia and Greece intend to partition Albania between them. That might, in fact, be no bad arrangement, for it is questionable whether there is any justification for the separate existence of this State of just over a million inhabitants which, except under King Zog, from 1925 to 1939, has never shown signs of stability since its creation in 1912. But such a solution would raise much too dangerous complications. The Albanian question is bound to come before the United Nations Assembly, if only as arising out of the report on Greece. It may be possible to secure peace, if not to change conditions which so seriously threaten peace.
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